CHAPTER IV--READING

The third factor in a happy life is play. Under play may be included all those activities which we engage in for their own sake. Many activities, such as golf, may be undertaken both for immediate pleasure and for profit, as health. This fact merely shows that some actions may have a play aspect and a work aspect at the same time.

It is obvious that even for the sake of the most efficient work play is a necessity. We need it not merely to preserve our health by the exercise and the relaxation which it affords; we need it as a refreshment of the mind. The spring constantly bent finally breaks. The person who allows himself the proper amount of relaxation will work more effectively and also last longer, so that there is a gain from every point of view.

One might suppose that play would be a simple matter, about which we need not trouble ourselves to think. Is it not that part of life in which we are doing what we like? Yes, but the conditions of pleasure are always more complex than we commonly suppose. Pleasure is the response of an inner capacity to an object outside of itself. This is true of the pleasure derived from eating an orange or smelling a rose. It is equally true of the satisfaction of ambition: there is a certain state, i. e. being at "the top of the ladder," and there is an inner capacity to receive satisfaction on reaching that state (remember Professor Huxley and the gold medal). It is true, again, of the enjoyment of music; there must be the external sounds, and there must be the "musical ear" which responds to those sounds. It is true of travel. A certain Chicago business man who, when he went to Switzerland habitually arranged to get out of each place as soon after his arrival as possible, insisted to the disappointed members of his family who were with him that all mountains looked alike; and when he had finally succeeded in getting out of the country declared that Chicago was good enough for him. This man had before him one of the greatest sources of pleasure which the world affords, but he lacked the inner capacity necessary for its enjoyment. This is what is meant by what Robert Louis Stevenson says concerning the value of money in his essay, Lay Morals. It is written by one brought up in wealth, who must have seen many times that which he here describes.

"Money is only a means; it presupposes a man to use it. The rich can go where he pleases, but perhaps please himself nowhere. He can buy a library or visit the whole world, but perhaps has neither patience to read nor intellıgence to see. The table may be loaded and the appetite wanting; the purse may be full and the heart empty. He may have gained the world and lost himself; and with all his wealth around him, in a great house and spacious and beautiful demesne, he may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher. Without an appetite, without an aspiration, void of appreciation, bankrupt of desire and hope, there, in his great house, let him sit and look upon his fingers. It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire. Although neither is to be despised, it is always better policy to learn an interest than to make a thousand pounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feel no joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable and ever new. To become a botanist, a geologist, a social philosopher, an antiquary, or an artist, is to enlarge one's possessions in the universe by an incalculably higher degree, and by a far surer sort of property, than to purchase a farm of many acres. You had perhaps two thousand a year before the transaction; perhaps you have two thousand five hundred after it. That represents your gain in the one case. But in the other, you have thrown down a barrier which con

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cealed significance and beauty. The blind man has learned to see. To be, not to possess that is the problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite and money but the second."

It is primarily because of the narrowness and shallowness of their capacity for enjoyment-a consequence, in many cases, of the unfortunate economic machinery in which they have been caught and mangled-that the sight of the "laboring people" on a holiday is one of the saddest sights in the world, far sadder than to see them undergoing the monotonous toil of the factory. Those who do not care to get drunk and who have visited this week's performances at the various accessible moving picture shows have nothing to do or to say. They would be in the condition of the cow in the field (chewing gum instead of the cud), were it not that the vacant-minded human being, unlike, it would seem, the cow, is plagued with ennui; and if alone is lonely, if with others is embarrassed for want of subjects for conversation. Is this inner poverty peculiar to the laboring classes? It is to be found in all classes of American society.

How to play so as to get the maximum of satisfaction at the time and the maximum of rest and refreshment, yes, and inspiration for work; how to play so that the play will constantly grow more interesting and delightful, instead of being more monotonous and more of a bore; how to vary one's play so as to obtain the variety which our nature craves, how to develop our latent and perhaps unsuspected cараcities for enjoyment; these are questions to think about. He who will not take the trouble to reflect on the subject will probably lose more in proportion than he who refuses to reflect upon the means of getting the most satisfaction out of the activities by which he earns his living.

The delight in certain forms of play is inherited by us from our savage ancestors. Hence they are well-nigh universal in their appeal. Others, we cannot say appear, but rather get their characteristic features in civilization. Hence, since what is called civilized society is very far from being composed entirely of civilized persons-the Australian savage can be taught to use the telephone, and even the chimpanzee to eat with a fork-the real enjoyment of these things is comparatively rare. If this were all there were to be said about it, there would be no use in discussing the subject, any more than in talking to the blind about the glories of a sunset. But the capacity for these higher and more satisfying forms of pleasure lies concealed in a great many people who never suspect its existence, probably in the great majority. An important part, therefore, of the study of the resources of life is to examine the less popular forms of play, in order that we may discover what they are, learn what they mean to those so fortunate as to love them, get some idea of their value in relation to other good things in life, and discover how to develop the capacity for enjoying them which is presumably latent in ourselves.

The two most important of these higher forms of play are the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art, and the delight in knowledge. The most widely accessible, and, at the same time, most easily appreciated varieties of beauty are those afforded by the spectacle of nature and by literature. Again the most widely accessible and most valuable source of knowledge apart from observation and, within rather narrow limits, conversation, is books (including other forms of printed matter). Hence it follows that reading has a significance among the forms of play which is denied to any of its competitors. For this reason we shall confine our study of play to the satisfactions of reading, premising, however, that the principles which will be brought to light have application far beyond the boundaries of this particular subject.

The following selection from Emerson's essay on books may supply us, if we reflect upon it, with some valuable suggestions about the value of books, how to learn to appreciate them, on what principles to choose them, and how best to use them. In writing this essay Emerson had in mind chiefly what is called pure literature-works of poetry, the novel, the drama, and the essay; or at all events works dealing with human life. This will explain some of his statements, and at the same time put us on our guard against a certain narrowness in his point of view. It will be noticed also that in discussing the value of books Emerson has in mind not merely the delights but also the profits of reading. In studying the essay we shall follow his example and not attempt to separate one of these subjects from the other.

The questions which are based upon the essay are intended to help us, (1) to discover Emerson's meaning; (2) to determine how far his statements are true; and (3) to supplement his views where he omits matters of importance. The appeal throughout, must be to the experience and observation of the pupil.

It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found; and the best are but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly there is dilettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral and do nothing for us.

But it is not less true that there are books which are of that importance in a man's private experience as to verify for him the fables of Cornelius Agrippa, of Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus of Thrace-books which take rank in our life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so authoritative,-books which are the work and the proof of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world which they paint, that though one shuts them with meaner ones, he feels his exclusion from them to accuse his way of living.

Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries in a thousand years have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom.